Author Archives: ensonsales

Choosing to Win!

Fragmentation and competition — they can destroy your business, or make it stronger. The choice is yours.

McDonald’s didn’t pack up their bag and go home when the Burger Kings, Wendy’s, Harvey’s and a long list of other competitors sprung up to eat their lunch (no pun intended)

And the auto industry’s ‘Big Three,’ Ford, General Motors and Chrysler, rose to the challenge to build better cars when dozens of manufacturers from Germany, Japan, and other countries began exporting their products to our shores.

In fact, General Motors continues to consistently be among the top three automakers in global sales.

You’ll hear and read a lot of doom and gloom about radio and TV as the number of new competitors we face mushrooms every day. By the way, those same new competitors are facing more new competitors every day, too.

So the choice is yours. You can make excuses for lack-luster sales, or you can choose to stand out in the crowd by being the best that you can be.

According to the Kauffman Foundation’s Index of Start Up Activity, small business growth is on the upswing. New and existing small businesses are looking for a star media professional like you to guide them through the confusing array of advertising and media choices they have and to improve their ROI (Return on Investment).

While many of the purveyors of new media are still selling their ‘platforms’ you can stand out in the crowd by selling results.

The choice is yours. You can be a shooting media star, or be a falling star. I don’t see why anyone would choose the latter.

Making Radio Tangible

The dictionary defines ‘tangible’ as; ‘able to be perceived by a sense of touch‘.
Radio is only an intangible if you let it become so. And if the only ‘tangible’ your clients receive from your station is an invoice, you’re headed for trouble.
At cutback time, the media with the most tangibles in your clients’ files often wins and escapes the knife! How thick is your client’s file of your tangibles?

Do they have a presentation on file that clearly outlines what you proposed to do for them and how you would achieve their objectives?
Have you delivered trade articles about marketing your customers’ categories?
What about wrap-up reports with testimonials from their customers, a summary of what you delivered, and of course, an outline of how you over-delivered?
Does your client’s file include all of the scripts you’ve delivered, audio copies of their commercials and proofs of performance?
Do they see your station-logoed swag every day, or do you make your presentations against a backdrop of your competitor’s swag?
Do you conduct post-campaign analysis and deliver written summaries of those analyses?
What about regular helpful tips and branding tools like our SoundADvice, complete with your photo and station logos?
Have you used your cell phone to forward pictures of their customers lined up at a successful event or remote?

At cutback time, the media with the most tangibles in the advertiser’s files wins! Don’t let the newspaper tear-sheets, or the billboard tent-cards and photos ‘out-tangible’ what you do, and certainly, don’t let an invoice be the only tangible advertisers receive from you!

P.S. If you don’t have a post-campaign analysis process, or want to learn more about our SoundADvice radio e-marketing system contact [email protected].

The Power of Branding

You know the success of clients who brand and create a pre-need preference for their business or their products. Our local TOMA (Top-of-Mind Awareness) surveys, in more than 100 markets, prove the power of branding time and time again.

But what do you do to create a pre-need preference for your sales people and your stations with advertisers in your market? Often, stations rely solely on the efforts of their sales people, without doing any marketing.

Click here to arrange a free online demo of how the SoundADvice radio e-marketing system can help train and brand your sales people to open more doors and close more sales.

Profits

After reading our ENS on Sales about the absurdity of patting ourselves on the back for achieving ‘record sales’, an astute client pointed out there is one ‘record’ worth pursuing… record profits.

We can’t feed our families with record ratings or record sales, although both can contribute to the result that can feed our families…profits!

The delicate balance between controlling costs but making investments that will pay off, is where the best managers shine.

To view the Record Sales article click here

P.S. We guarantee a return on your investment in our (TOMA) Top Of Mind Awareness surveys. Click here to arrange an online demo.

Hooray For Canadian Radio

It appears a new radio marketing bureau is on the horizon, called Radio Connects.

As someone who has always held the efforts of the Radio Marketing Bureau, and its predecessors the Radio Bureau of Canada and the Radio Sales Bureau, dear to my heart, I applaud the efforts of the CAB committee to get this initiative off the ground.

But now I’ll issue a few warnings in the hopes that my industry doesn’t shoot itself in the foot again;

1.) Don’t have unrealistic expectations of what your new marketing body can do for you. Radio Connects is starting from ground zero, with a limited budget and is mandated to promote radio in the midst of a digital frenzy.

2.) Don’t have unrealistic expectations of when you will see results. Even in radio best of times, we often took a back seat to TV, newspaper and digital, so Radio Connect has a huge battle ahead.

3.) Support the new Radio Connects with your time, expertise and funding. You may not agree with every strategy or initiative that evolves from this effort, but let’s not get bogged down with special interests and nay-sayers. Radio is the ONLY Canadian media without an industry marketing association, and that’s not right.

4.) Remember, Executive Director Sarah Garvie and her special advisor Paul Ski are serving a committee of your peers. Please empower them and give them the benefit of the doubt.

ENS on Sales

All About Radio Sales